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Davis County IT seeks consolidation, cites $1–1.9M hardware and rising subscription costs; data governance urged
Summary
IT staff proposed network upgrades, wireless testing, a consolidated payment/cashiering app and stronger data governance; presenters flagged roughly 1.0M annual rotation costs (1.9M total hardware figure on slides) and estimated custom development costs of about 2.6M per year in fully loaded developer expenses.
Jeff Hassett and Mike Pace of Davis County IT presented a multi‑part technology plan at the Sept. 16 Budget Committee meeting that combined immediate 'lights‑on' replacement costs with proposals for consolidation and stronger countywide data governance.
IT said annual replacement/rotation for hardware is roughly in the 1.0M range and the slide deck listed 1.9M as the total hardware figure. Staff recommended continuing scheduled rotations for PCs (typical life discussed as 4–5 years) and laptops (often 3–4 years), with a possible move toward a 4‑year PC rotation to even out costs. On software and subscriptions, IT noted broad vendor price increases (roughly 5% cited as common) and attributed a substantial share of subscription growth to security segmentation software (the transcript referenced an increase around 616,000).
New request items included wireless testing and mapping for the county building, network switch upgrades, a municipal access upgrade, and a countywide cashiering/payment platform to consolidate multiple point‑of‑sale systems. IT explained that the county already has Avaya capabilities for 'softphones' and is testing phone‑masking/remote client configurations for staff mobile usage.
IT also catalogued department asks (attorney video editing, assessor commercial laptops, sheriff auditorium AV, fingerprint scanners for ankle monitoring, cell‑check modules and biometric workstation upgrades). Members raised resource and prioritization concerns: IT noted only a three‑person GIS team and cautioned that frequent, decentralized SaaS purchases create duplication and security liabilities.
On custom development, IT estimated the county’s annual custom development cost (developer fully‑loaded) at roughly $2,600,000 and urged commissioners to weigh off‑the‑shelf options versus continued bespoke work; presenters warned that heavily customizing commercial products can be expensive and complicated to maintain.
IT recommended a stronger data governance model—citing House Bill 491 in the discussion—and stated the principle that each dataset should have a designated data owner. Staff said better governance would limit uncoordinated SaaS adoption and reduce data‑release and liability risks.
Next steps included a focused work session on these IT items later in the month and further cost/priority analysis to be presented to the budget committee.
